Re: Red Dwarf series 9 (or is it 10?) in 2012 confirmed by Craig Charl

Well it's better than Back to Earth... well anything would've been better than Back to Earth. The production values I felt were higher (no out of place looking CGI so far) and the cast still know their characters. I just now hope that the writing's up to par.

No particularly outstanding moments but I'll be sticking around for the next couple of episodes.

Re: Red Dwarf series 9 (or is it 10?) in 2012 confirmed by Craig Charl

Oh, that was great. Red Dwarf, back where it belongs: Small cast, no huge dependence on special effects, and a live audience. The energy was there, a little slower perhaps by twenty-plus years of age, but it's like a GOOD older wine after spitting out three glasses of a bottle that's been sitting next to the water heater downstairs.

The design changed almost every year in the older run. I remember they justified most things without really dwelling on it. For example, Kryten's accident requiring him to be reconstructed, though that conflicts with later references to him having "always" looked like that. Or suddenly having a different quarters set, but acknowledging that they'd just moved into the officer's quarters - even though the corridors outside changed almost every year anyway. They've always had another set for stuff to happen in on the Dwarf, be it the drive room, science lab, and now apparently a bridge..? The Space Corps never stayed the same between episodes anyway, and they've already spoofed Trek uniforms anyway ("Holoship"), so why stop now?

Anyway, this first episode didn't leave the weird look on my face that Back to Earth's first episode did. I recently re-watched BTE in the run-up to this series and while a lot of the componenet for what made Red Dwarf great were there, it just doesn't work without a studio audience. Spending the latter two episodes on location just made it worse. Really looking forward to the rest of this series!

Re: Red Dwarf series 9 (or is it 10?) in 2012 confirmed by Craig Charl

Really good episode. Refreshing and back to the more comedic aspects of the show. Back to the style it was in visuals too. "Is he Swedish?" got a very loud laugh from me which was building up throughout. Can't wait for next week!
Ah, back to good BBC Sci-fi.... Doctor Who? Who?

As for the sets. I remember one of the reasons used for the change of appearance was that they were inhabiting different sections of the ship.

Re: Red Dwarf series 9 (or is it 10?) in 2012 confirmed by Craig Charl

Also have to say the guys may be 30 years older but damn they're looking good. If you look at RD1 they obviously look incredibly young but this time round they definitely don't look 30 years down the line. It gives hope to us all. OK Kryten has an advantage but the others don't.

Different areas of the Space Corps. We've seen the JMC uniform (S1&2), its parallel universe equivalent (Ouroborous), the standard uniform of a Holoship (Holoship) and probably several others I can't bring to mind right now. Also, the SC uniform would no doubt have been redesigned several times over the years, much like the Starfleet uniforms this one was spoofing; the Trojan outfit was likely just the "current" version at the time the ship was launched, which the Dwarfers presumably found aboard.

Re: Red Dwarf series 9 (or is it 10?) in 2012 confirmed by Craig Charl

What on Earth was wrong with the Kryten costume? Llewelyn doesn't look that different in real life to how he did when he made the last one, so why does the character look like he's got several spare tyres? Could they not make one that fitted? Both he and Rimmer looked like the photo Danny John-Jules must have in his loft.

Not a bad episode though, shame the post season 6 backlash has seen everything get turned back so far all character development from the moment Kryten joined the crew has been ignored, but there's some nice gags ("It's a moose") and unlike most of season VIII an attempt at a plot.

It was mildly odd to have Red Dwarf as part of a wider community with a fully functional space corp and all android shopping. Feels like a big departure from the days they'd run into an odd Gelf village every now and then. Despite a token "Last man alive" line it does feel like the original isolated alone in space format has been completely dropped now, even more than when they brought the crew back.

The whole thing was a bit Last of the Summer Wine as well, basically doing the same thing it always did in a nice and safe way to keep us old fuckers happy because we can't handle modern edgy comedy. Which isn't a bad thing at all, and it was a nice way to spend half an hour. It just makes me feel old that the cool comedy from when I was a teenager is now a Granddad in slippers.

Re: Red Dwarf series 9 (or is it 10?) in 2012 confirmed by Craig Charl

It's probably that everytime they get back from a 3 or four year hiatus that they find most of their props/costumes, and the certainly sets, cannibalised and co-opted by other ventures trying to pad their budgets thinking that Red Dwarf has been cancelled... Which explains the Space Corps uniforms too.

Re: Red Dwarf series 9 (or is it 10?) in 2012 confirmed by Craig Charl

Just got round to watching Trojan and have to say I really enjoyed it... series 7-9 were mostly pretty painful to watch (although they did have the odd gem). echoing what others have said, it felt like the earlier series of RD... even back to the series 3 style uniform Rimmer is now sporting (albeit blue because of his hard light drive).